Washington, DC -- The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a landmark decision today in which California state courts found that its medical marijuana law was not preempted by federal law. The state appellate court decision from November 28, 2007, ruled that "it is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws." The case, involving Felix Kha, a medical marijuana patient from Garden Grove, was the result of a wrongful seizure of medical marijuana by local police in June 2005. Medical marijuana advocates hailed today's decision as a huge victory in clarifying law enforcement's obligation to uphold state law. Advocates assert that better adherence to state medical marijuana laws by local police will result in fewer needless arrests and seizures. In turn, this will allow for better implementation of medical marijuana laws not only in California, but in all states that have adopted such laws.
"It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the medical marijuana advocacy organization that represented the defendant Felix Kha in a case that the City of Garden Grove appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. "Perhaps, in the future local government will think twice about expending significant time and resources to defy a law that is overwhelmingly supported by the people of our state."
California medical marijuana patient Felix Kha was pulled over by the Garden Grove Police Department and cited for possession of marijuana, despite Kha showing the officers proper documentation. The charge against Kha was subsequently dismissed, with the Superior Court of Orange County issuing an order to return Kha's wrongfully seized 8 grams of medical marijuana. The police, backed by the City of Garden Grove, refused to return Kha's medicine and the city appealed. Before the 41-page decision was issued a year ago by California's Fourth District Court of Appeal, the California Attorney General filed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of Kha's right to possess his medicine. The California Supreme Court then denied review in March.
"The source of local law enforcement's resistance to upholding state law is an outdated, harmful federal policy with regard to medical marijuana," said ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes. "This should send a message to the federal government that it's time to establish a compassionate policy more consistent with the 13 states that have adopted medical marijuana laws."
The Department of Commerce has stated their interest in holding a public hearing on the Foothill-South toll road extension, disregarding the impotent raging of Transportation Corridor Agencies counsel Robert Thornton. The LA Times reported on the road's construction cost leaping from $875 million to $1.3 billion and that ridership is down on the Foothill-South by "nearly 4 percent." The Army Corps of Engineers has declared that there could still be potential alternatives to the favored route, one which would carve through the Donna O'Neill Land Conservancy and inland San Onofre State Beach, potentially exterminating the Pacific pocket mouse and annihilating any sense of tranquility at the Acjachemen sacred site of Panhe. One has to ask, what hasn't gone wrong for the TCA lately?
In fact there are two nuggets of good news for toll road fans. In a letter dated May 23, 2008, FHWA counsel James D. Ray sent a letter to Undersecretary of Commerce Conrad Lautenbacher citing the urgent need for this traffic-reducing, $875 Million dollar project. But there are a pair of problems.
1) The toll road is clearly a traffic incentive, not a traffic reducer. 2) The TCA has revised their numbers; now the road will cost $1.3 billion, nearly a 50 percent increase.
TCA spokesperson Jennifer Seaton informed the Weekly she had provided the Times with the updated $1.3 billion figure. Seaton cautions that there is no "apples-to-apples comparison" between the two figures, as the new number incorporates environmental mitigation costs not calculated into the initial number. Seaton also warns this is not a "new" number, but merely part of the annual update to the board. Still, add this money to the $1.1 billion in taxpayer dollars the TCA is seeking to help facilitate a merger between its two boards, and we get a number like $2.4 billion. This is disturbingly close to the $2.8 billion the TCA claims it will cost to widen Interstate 5, a number it brandishes like a weapon to demonstrate the ludicrous ideas and expenditures of anyone who opposes them.
Ray's letter also cites how "the USACE preliminarily determined the TCA preferred alternative would be the [Least Environmentally Damaging Project Alternative] under the Clean Water Act." Unfortunately for Ray, FHWA, TCA and douchebags everywhere, the Corps of Engineers has spoken loud and clear on this issue.
Col. Thomas Magness is the man who makes the final LEDPA call, and he hasn't even reached for the phone yet. Magness had his final word on the matter posted on the Corps' website: "My intent in the letter, as a neutral arbiter in the environmental review, was to make clear that our process has not run its course. There has been no final, formal decision on any of the remaining practicable alternatives. More analysis, public review and comment are needed and are ongoing."
But I have digressed from my nuggets. Recently the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service gave the project an A-OK, saying the project met all federal requirements. Could this be related to disgraceful former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald and her alleged collaborated with developers to eliminate critical habitat distinctions for, among other species, the arroyo toad, which is threatened by the 241? It could be. According to a 2007 Center for Biological Diversity release, "'Habitat loss is the number-one killer of endangered species,' said Michael Senatore, senior counsel at the Center for Biological Diversity. 'These species won't survive unless we protect their habitat. Julie MacDonald is an endangered-species Death Star. Her overruling of scientists is inexcusable… The political problems in the Department of Interior run much deeper than MacDonald. The agency has descended into a culture of corruption, the likes of which I've never seen before,' Senatore concluded."
What better incentive could there be to attend a Department of Commerce hearing? See the Army face off against the Highway Administration! Watch the Colonel take on the counsels! Perhaps we might even get to witness another dressing-down of TCA CEO Tom Margro, just like at the Coastal Commission Hearing in Del Mar. If the FHWA's error-laden letter is anything to go by, someone's dress is going down for sure... - By Alex Brant-Zawadzki .
Lazy stoner Dale Denton has only one reason to visit his equally lazy dealer Saul Silver: to purchase weed, specifically, a rare new strain called Pineapple Express... .
Marijuana is the linchpin of the War On Drugs. When we as a nation learn the facts and behave rationally, marijuana will inevitably be legalized, the War On Drugs will end, and the need for new prisons will disappear.
According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, there is no proof that a causal relationship exists between cigarettes, alcohol, cannabis and other drugs. Basic scientific and clinical research establishing causality does not exist.
As for DNA damage, brain damage and cancer supposedly caused by cannabis, no epidemiological evidence exists that links cannabis to any disease.
Despite 80 years of drug prohibition, at the cost of billions upon billions of dollars, and at a great loss of our precious civil liberties, anybody of any age that has a couple of bucks can buy illegal drugs. They're cheaper, more pure, more diverse and more widely available than ever before. The illicit drug market is an unregulated, free-market with no age limit and no ID required.
"Everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night.
Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows.
Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."
In summary, don't let anyone tell you that the war on drugs is only a metaphor. It's a war. Just remember the words of James Reston: "......In any war, the first casualty is common sense, and the second is free and open discussion..." .
Who would like to become the first black president, had white ancestors who owned slaves.
Researcher, William Addams Reitwiesner, said the discovery is part of his first draft of research into Obama's roots. The Illinois senator's father was from Kenya, and his mother was a white woman from Kansas.
Reitwiesner found in 1850 Census records from Kentucky that one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned a 15-year-old girl and a 25-year-old man... .
A former drug enforcement officer in Texas, Barry Cooper, now wants to instruct people on how to avoid arrest for marijuana possession. , He created a Web site that shows how not to get busted for pot.
"...why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth." -Will Rogers... .
For years, activists in the marijuana legalization movement have claimed that cannabis is America's biggest cash crop. Now they're citing government statistics to prove it... .
Looks at typical family life in the suburban neighborhood of Agrestic, California, where recently-widowed Nancy Botwin plays referee to a circle of dysfunctional suburbanites who assemble at weekend soccer matches, PTA meetings, and many other domestic rituals of everyday life. Left with more family debt than she expected, Nancy finds it hard making ends meet while raising her two sons, so she's recently become a very successful neighborhood door-to-door salesman. But not for Mary Kay cosmetics or Tupperware. No, Nancy is selling pot and it's a business that is booming. .
ESTP - "Promotor". Action! When present, things begin to happen. Fiercely competitive. Entrepreneur. Often uses shock effect to get attention. Negotiator par excellence. 4.3% of total population.
Content, emotionally stable, outgoing, social, group oriented, finisher, does not like to be alone, open, decisive, likes external praise, likes to be center of attention, always joking, adjusts easily, likes crowds, self confident, neutral moods, good at getting people to have fun, disorganized, messy, talented at presentation, can be easily annoyed...
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